May 25th

Every year he forgot. Well, no. He never forgot. He just put the memories away, like old silverware that you didn’t want to tarnish. And every year they came back, sharp and sparkling, and stabbed him in the heart. And today, of all days…

My evidence: 

Ned is the only other Watchman who is new to the squad, and new to Ankh-Morpork.

He is supposedly the only person who knew the real John Keel, but he never calls Sam out for it. If there ever was a real Ned Coates, and he really knew John Keel, we only have Ned’s word for it.

When he and Sam spar, he fights just as dirty as Sam does, and claims John Keel taught him the tricks Sam uses himself. 

He’s protective of Vimesy, moreso than other Watchmen though he’s known them all for the same length of time.

He is clearly up to SOMETHING; Sam thinks he’s one of the real revolutionaries plotting to overthrow Winder, but none of the other revolutionaries interact with him or seem to know him that I can recall.

When Sam admits he’s a time traveler, he’s unfazed; his question “From how far back?” would make perfect sense as “from how far back in my timeline, where you are my dad?”

He supposedly dies in the last fight, but Sam doesn’t see it, and Sam supposedly died in that fight too.

Lu-Tze is 100% good enough to have two time-travelers operating at the same time without breaking the timeline; he does, however, worry about the unusual strain he’s creating.

So, let’s say an adult Young Sam has a time-travel accident. Possibly after some sort of major falling-out with his dad, one that’s got him still pissed off at him. And now he’s stuck in a vastly more shitty version of the city he grew up in, and the versions of his dad he has met so far are a) a dumb kid and b) kind of a dick. He is not having a great time. He really, really wants to go home, but first he has a revolution to see through.

Every day I get up. I go to work. I sell people things. There are fewer people coming through and they’re buying more because they’re stocking up or they haven’t been shopping in a month, but there are still lines, like always. There’s plexiglass between the cashiers and the customers, and no dividers, and we have to continually yell at people not to put their items on the belt until we’ve finished the previous transaction, and they ignore us or argue with us, same as always. The more rules we have, the more rules there are for people to ignore. And the longer it goes on, the more normal it gets. Pretty much no one thanks us for coming in to work anymore. People are starting to act like we should never, ever run out of an item. It’s just blanket assumed that we will have hand sanitizer and soap and toilet paper and people are shocked when we say we’re out.  But there are still ads on the TV in the break room telling us all to stay home and the more the customers ignore social distancing, the more management puts pressure on us to set a good example, until we’re expected to follow standards that are physically impossible.

The longer this goes on, the less ‘essential’ I feel.

And then I come home and get online as always and there are all of these people asking what you’re doing while you’re stuck in quarantine and coming up with fun things to do when you’re in quarantine and talking about what you’re going to do when this whole thing is over and you can finally, finally leave your house. Everyone just seems to assume that you, the person reading their words, are in quarantine, because everyone’s in quarantine. It’s like this big, international, universal experience that you’re not a part of.

Go be horny on 2nd Ave or even Market Street. Support local business whenever possible rather than big chain warehouse stores and multinational retailers that bought out all the prime locations.